A new method for indicator species analysis in the framework of multivariate analysis of variance

Question In vegetation science, the compositional dissimilarity among two or more groups of plots is usually tested with dissimilarity-based multivariate analysis variance (db-MANOVA), whereas characterization different performed by means indicator species analysis. Although db-MANOVA and are apparently very far from each other, question we address here is: can put both approaches under same methodological umbrella? Methods We will show that for a specific class measures, partitioning variation used in one-factor be additively decomposed into species-level values allowing us to identify contribute most differences groups. Results The proposed method, which provide simple R function, illustrated one small data set on alpine sampled along successional gradient. Conclusion preferentially concentrated particular plots. Therefore, they appropriately called species. This connects